Category Archives: Polling

Clouds of pixels and barrels of ink are emitted on speculation as to how democrat superdelegates will vote, and what criteria they will use to inform that vote.

We hear from them that “electability” is important. What most of those superdelegates mean to do when they cast this line of thought is have the listeners own mind catch upon Ms. Clinton’s fairly impressive negatives. If I were a superdelegate disposed to support Obama, though, I would probably stop this justification.

Look at the following poll data is three key swing states both parties covet in the general election. Who do you think is more electable amongst the two democrat candidates for president?

Got an e-mail yesterday from someone with the campaign looking for PA volunteers to work DE in anticipation of their Tsunami Tuesday primary. I plan on volunteering, but I am somewhat bemused that they think it’s a good idea to start pounding the pavement and calling people at home the week before Christmas.

I know it seems like the primary is right on top of us. We’ve been talking about this election for a coon’s age, and we’re now coming up on some actual voting. Seems to me, though, they have over a month to cover all of DE without hassling people during Christmas.

If other candidates are doing it, I would instead send out a piece of direct mail wishing GOP voters a Merry Christmas, and warning them they’ll probably hear from the campaign in the New Year. After all, DE polls are pretty thin on the ground, but all the ones I can find indicate Team Rudy has the inside line on those 23 “winner take all” delegates.

I know every delegate counts, but still…

UPDATE: At least one Delaware paper is backing Giuliani: The Foster Daily Democrat’s endorsement is here. For today only! PA for Hizzoner is now DE for Hizzoner.

Seriously, I have no idea what that endorsement does or doesn’t mean. My knowledge of the First State’s media landscape is pretty sketchy. That said, I’ve always been a fan of this plucky underdog of a state, and an admirer of their fiscal policy. It’s true: I’ve purchased more than one big ticket item at the big box stores right across the border to avoid sales tax.

So’s McCain, as a matter of fact. I gotta’ give it to John. Over the summer when it appeared his campaign ran out of money due to anemic fundraising and mismanagement, I was among the many that wrote him off for dead. Those were the heady days of conservative revolt over immigration reform, too.

In a recent Quinnipiac poll [HT Keystone Politics] both he and Giuliani now trail Clinton by only two points in a hypothetical general election match-up. Maybe Hillary’s weaselly non-answer re. driver’s licenses for illegals at that debate had some effect on her numbers. Actually, I thought her pusillanimous yet haughty response at being “bullied” by the big, mean Tim Russert was more embarrassing.

If she thought that was tough, it’s no wonder she’s never accepted an invitation from Limbaugh or Hewitt.

Also, both Ms. Clinton and Rudy are way out ahead in potential primary polling in this one, like always. No time to read the internals today, so if you can, and find something interesting, please let me know.

PS: There’s a new PA blogger in the blogroll: Thousand Points of Right. He’s a retired NYC firefighter and current PA resident who supports the mayor. At least he says he is. The internet’s a wild, woolly place!

If you want an antidote to the conspiratorial venom attacking Giuliani from the current firefighter’s labor union, he’s your man.

I was looking at a NH poll today showing Mayor Giuliani lagging behind Romney– which was a bummer as Hizzoner had tightened things up there during the last round of polls– and saw that the bulk of independent voters in NH still aren’t sure which primary they’ll vote in.

They get to make that choice as NH has an open primary: You don’t have to be registered as a member of the same party in who’s primary you’d like to cast a ballot. I think this bodes will for Giuliani. The GOP race will be more comeptitive, and hence should draw more independent voters. I bet Giuliani is very strong with that crowd. I have not seen commentary regarding this.

As a matter of theory I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, we are a de facto two party system, if not a de jure one. I used to be a registered libertarian, and one of the main reasons I now am a registered member of the GOP– and now a ward leader– was I became sick of having no voice in the primaries. It was a real bummer to be unable to cast a ballot against Arlen Specter…

On the other hand, though, political parties are private organizations. Now, I think it might be difficult for the Dems to restrict their primary to only illegal immigrants, and for the GOP to restrict theirs to men named Cleetus. Still, as private organizations I instinctively support their rights to handle their affairs however they want.

I do wonder, though, if Giuliani’s fight for the GOP nod would pretty much be fait accompli if all states had open primaries. It would certainly be the case here in the Commonwealth of PA.

It’s a problem as old as the GOP, actually. The primaries are the place where minority factions carry the most water. But does this end up giving us the best possible candidates for a general election? Ronald Reagans aren’t very commonplace…

Over at Red State there’s a little discussion going about the dynamics of the GOP primary. The initial piece theorized that none of the GOP voters supporting 2nd and 3rd tier candidates will select Giuliani as their candidate, so his row will get tougher to hoe as time goes on.

This is just a different way of putting the case that Giuliani benefits from a diffusion of the socially conservative vote.

The question I have is this: What evidence exists that the supporters of Tancredo, Brownback, Hunter, Huckabee, and even McCain do not have Giuliani as their second choice? It seems to be assumed as impossible, but in PA, for example, we have seen ample polling suggesting evangelical and rural voters like Giuliani just fine.

As I say, people should check the actual data before making assertions.

Quinnipiac University does a monthly poll of swing states: PA, OH, and FL.

The big picture? Hillary and Giuliani appear to remain the favorites for their respective nominations. Rudy’s matchups w/her in a general election are looking marginally worse. Still close, but he’s now behind her in all three. The upside of this? He’s still way better than all the other GOP candidates.

Vis a vis the GOP race, the big news is this: Giuliani *still* is doing well amongst evangelicals. He leads amongst them in OH and PA, and comes in second to Fred Thompson in Florida. I say that’s more a product of the fact that Thompson is Southern than anything else. It’s easy for us northerners to think of Florida as Miami and Orlando. Travel around the state, though, and you’ll see many parts are every bit as “southern” as Mississippi.

Also interesting to note is that in hypothetical general election matchups the GOP candidate that comes closest to performing as well as Giuliani is not Romney or Thompson, but McCain. So stay in the game, John! It’s good for Hizzoner.

Aside: They seem to like Obama a lot in OH. It seems it can’t catch a break in the Dem. primary, there, but he’s arguably stronger than Hillary in a general. Weird. I guess they just hate the GOP that much.

Consider yourselves warned, Commonwealth GOP leaders in PA. You guys aren’t all that different….wait….I’m one of those guys, now, since I’m now a ward leader. Well, at least I’ve warned myself!

It would be disingenuous to deny that some of Hizzoner’s appeal lies in his electability. It is difficult to imagine any other GOP candidate has a better chance at winning a general election.

Of course, the fly in the ointment has always been about his electability in the GOP primary. Take a look at this map, though: (ht Lead Us Forward)

This map is based on the most recent polling in various state’s primaries, as they stand right now.

When the math is broken down, Mayor Giuliani would have more than twice as many delegates as his next nearest comeptitor, Fred Thompson. Romney and McCain would have about one seventh the delegates of Giuliani, with McCain actually beating Romney.

Currently, the Giuliani and Romney campaigns view each other as the primary competition. I judge this by the e-mail missives sent to pundits from each team’s communication’s apparatus. Last night the Giuliani campaign sent out nine such e-mails, with five taking digs at Romney and two taking runs at Fred as something of an afterthought. I am told the Romney campaign is maintaining a similar ratio, just taking jabs at Rudy.

Frankly, though, I find it hard to imagine Romney can overcome these odds. He’s spent about 10 million dollars to build his lead in IA, and not even he has enough money to do that everywhere else.

This is where PA comes in. Everyone knows Giuliani is strong in the Northeast. What other campaign’s must bitterly realize is these are all states where it is really, really expensive to organize and purchase media. Giuliani’s strength, you’ll see, also lies on the West Coast and upper Midwest (yes, yes, I know these are considered more “liberal”, but you be careful saying that to an Orange County Republican who launched Reagan’s political career).

Thing is, unless some candidate can erode Giuliani’s support in PA, NJ, NY, CA, he may be unstoppable. Not that those states are enough to win. But again, they are pricey. On that terrain it is much less fiscally prohibitive to play defence than offense.

Given this, the Giuliani campaigns electoral bar for the rest of the country may be set about as low as the one set for Fred Thompson at yesterday’s debates.